Bangladesh: Just deserts at last

The past week has been a historic one for Bangladesh. Ghulam Azam, the former amir of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, was sentenced to 90 years in prison by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal for orchestrating crimes against humanity during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War. More than 3 million people were killed and around 250,000 women were raped by the Pakistani army and its collaborators during the nine-month-long liberation struggle that led to the independence of Bangladesh.

Azam, who was then the chief of the East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami in 1971, was instrumental in organising and directing the anti-liberation forces. He played a pivotal role in the formation of collaborator organisations such as the Peace Committees, Razakar Bahini, Al-badr and Al-shams that actively assisted the Pakistani occupation military in perpetrating the most heinous crimes imaginable. The minority Hindu community was specifically targeted – their houses looted and burned, their women raped and their kith and kin forced to migrate to India. Pro-liberation Muslim Bengalis were branded as Indian agents and ruthlessly hunted down.

In effect, Azam and the Jamaat – including its notorious students wing the Islami Chhatra Sangha, now Islami Chhatra Shibir – helped carry out the worst genocide in human history since the Holocaust in World War II. Despite this background and the eventual birth of a secular Bangladesh, the misfortunes of fate could not bring the war criminals to justice for more than four decades. Worse still, after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, the Jamaat and its leaders were rehabilitated in independent Bangladesh, and even went on to occupy top posts in future Bangladeshi governments. Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, who was also convicted this past week and sentenced to death for his role as a leader of the Al-badr militia – infamous for killing Bengali intellectuals towards the fag end of the Liberation War – was a minister in the last BNP-Jamaat government between 2001 and 2006.

There is no denying that the ongoing war crimes trials are vital for Bangladesh to make peace with the past and ensure a modicum of justice for the victims of the liberation struggle. In that sense, Azam’s conviction is a huge victory. In many ways, he was the face of the war crimes and persecution in 1971. The only reason he escaped the gallows is because the tribunal took his old age – the Jamaat’s spiritual leader is 91-years-old – into consideration. Nonetheless, the fact that Azam is now forced to don a prisoner’s uniform and will spend the rest of his days behind bars should provide succour to millions of war crimes victims.

Having said that, thanks to political exigencies, instead of uniting Bangladesh the war crimes trials have become a major source of division. On the one hand, secular-minded liberal Bangladeshis have gravitated towards the pro-trial Shahbagh movement that has called for trying all war criminals, including Jamaat as an organisation. On the other hand, the Jamaat and its cohorts, including the Islamist movement Hefazat-e-Islam, have branded the trials as politically motivated and called for releasing all war crimes accused. They have also charged the ruling Awami League dispensation of denigrating Islam and supporting atheist social activists. As a result, with general elections due in a few months, political and religious ideologies have overlapped to kick off an intense Islam-versus-secularism debate in Bangladeshi society today.

However, the war crimes trials are not about Islam versus secularism; it is about Islam versus extremism. For, a vast number of those brutalised or killed during the Liberation War were Bengali Muslims who believed that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. They believed that Islam enjoined them to fight injustice and favour the weak. They believed that as Muslims it was their duty to protect the minorities. They saw no contradiction between their religion and their love for their mother tongue Bengali. And, lastly, they believed in a secular state where every individual was guaranteed fundamental rights irrespective of his religious or ideological orientation.

In fact, it was Ghulam Azam and his men who insulted Islam by killing Muslims and perpetrating various atrocities on Hindus. Hence, those defending the war criminals are further guilty of besmirching the great religion of Islam. It is precisely for this reason that the Awami and the Bangladeshi judiciary should turn a deaf ear to the protestations of those against the war crimes trials. The latter, however, should maintain the highest level of integrity and bring to justice all war criminals irrespective of their current political affiliations. In this regard, the trial of Mobarak Hossain – an Awami politician since the 1990s – for committing war crimes in the Brahmanbaria region is commendable.

In an election year it is difficult for the ruling dispensation to resist the temptation to give in to what are perceived as the popular demands of a certain section of the electorate. Nonetheless, the Awami must stay the course and withstand the pressure from the Islamists. For far too long those who conspired against the liberation of Bangladesh have got away with impunity. After 42 years, there is finally an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. For a modern, democratic and secular Bangladesh, it is imperative that the war crimes trials are successfully carried out. Only then will the legacy of Bangabandhu truly remain preserved.